A Texas firm with ties to former Supt. David Brown is back training officers at the police academy after being dumped by the Chicago Police Department over cost concerns after Brown left the department.

Last May 19, then-interim police Supt. Fred Waller told police reform chief Tina Skahill to notify Professional Law Enforcement Training that “CPD will no longer need their services as of June 1,” citing the “significant cost.”

But PLET was brought back late last year.

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The department says it’s fulfilling the agreement the company had been handed, without competitive bidding, by Brown when he was the city’s top cop.

Under its deal, the police department could have voided the agreement within 30 days “at no cost.” It’s unclear whether the department tried to exercise that clause.

Brown brought in PLET in 2021. He and the founders of the company, along with at least four PLET employees, all previously worked for the Dallas Police Department.

The Chicago Police Department’s no-bid deal with PLET has cost the city more than $3.5 million, records show — including $62,800 it’s been paid over three installments since Dec. 21 after being brought back to the academy.

Of the money it’s been paid, $289,500 came from what’s called the 1505 fund, a pool of seized drug cash that insiders have called the police department’s secret budget.

The police department released two formal agreements it has with PLET in response to a public records request from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Those deals were signed on the company’s letterhead, not on an official city contract — and they don’t account for much of what the city has paid PLET.

The amounts of the payments were detailed, though, on company invoices that broadly describe the training it provides.

After Waller told her in an email to notify PLET that it was out, Skahill said that email was “crafted to falsely appear that someone else informed him of PLET costs when I recommended cancelling the night before and he approved cancellation.”

Skahill soon retired, saying Waller was retaliating against her for overseeing an internal investigation that led to his suspension. She said her role had been significantly diminished and that Waller had told her she was being demoted on the same day the email was sent.

A police spokesperson says a complaint was referred to the City Hall inspector general’s office for investigation. Inspector General Deborah Witzburg wouldn’t say whether her office is looking into Skahill’s claims or the department’s ties with PLET.

Waller, who was brought out of retirement to be interim superintendent by Mayor Brandon Johnson during a search for a permanent superintendent, is now a key adviser to current Supt. Larry Snelling, his onetime protege.

Waller is being paid a total of $333,323Â a year between his salary in that role and his city pension — more than Snelling makes.

Waller’s attempt last May to get rid of PLET came a month after his predecessor, Eric Carter, agreed to the deal under which the company’s trainers recently returned to working at the police academy.

That deal Carter signed off on calls for “46 iterations of leadership training” that initially were to run from Sept. 10 through Nov. 10 and allowing for more courses to be requested. The estimated cost was $85,000.

Police sources say supervisors — including captains, lieutenants and sergeants — went through new training from PLET and Chicago police instructors late last year.

Three of the five PLET employees who worked with Brown in the Dallas Police Department played key roles in what he’s described as the most harrowing event in his long career in law enforcement.

When Brown was police chief in Dallas, an Afghanistan war veteran angry over police shootings carried out a sniper attack during a protest in downtown Dallas in July 2016. Five cops were killed.

The shooter hunkered down inside a building on a college campus, leading to a standoff with police. Brown ultimately authorized police use of a robot equipped with a pound of C4 explosive to kill the suspect, an unprecedented move.

Larry Gordon, a retired Dallas police sergeant, was the lead negotiator during the standoff, according to his biography on PLET’s website.

He’s mentioned multiple times in Brown’s memoir, titled “Called to Rise,” according to an adaptation published by Esquire magazine. Gordon “drew [the shooter] into a loud and prolonged conversation” to distract him from the hum of the robot’s motor, Brown wrote, allowing police to carry out their deadly mission.

Barry Ragsdale, another retired Dallas police sergeant, then led a team of officers who cleared the building, according to a website maintained by the Dallas police. Joe Garza, also a retired Dallas police sergeant, “supervised the interviews and interrogations” that day, according to his PLET biography.

Brown stepped down from his Dallas post later that year.

Sabrina Boston, a co-founder of PLET, previoiusly was an undercover Dallas narcotics officer. She retired in 2017 after two decades on the job.

Brown and Boston signed the initial PLET agreement in February 2021, under which the firm would be paid at least $16,500 a month for a year to conduct training focused on drug investigations, firearms training and undercover and street gang operations.

That was the start of the arrangement that has now spanned the tenures of four of Chicago’s top cops.

PLET has done training across the country and for other Illinois police agencies, including the Illinois State Police.

The company’s previous work at the Chicago police academy drew pans from some officers, who said the training was subpar. They pointed to instruction on the history of Chicago gangs and said training on how cops should enter homes during searches appeared to contradict the department’s policies.

A former sergeant says he and his team were conducting a gang investigation on the West Side when they were ordered to go to the academy for training. The PLET instructor’s information about gangs was “years old and incorrect, like he Googled it,” according to the sergeant, speaking on the condition he not be named.

“I got up and walked out and told my team they could, too, after they signed up,” he says. “It was insulting.”

He says they all left and returned to work.

Emails show PLET responded to cops’ criticism of its instruction on the history of Chicago gangs.

On April 8, 2022, Ernest Cato, then-chief of the police Bureau of Counterterrorism, emailed Boston, thanking her for forwarding cops’ evaluations of the company’s training.

Cato also wrote that, in “multiple evaluations,” officers asked for “more information on gangs/history of gangs in the city of Chicago.”

Three days later, Boston emailed back that she’d spoken with the instructor and that he said his training had included an overview of Chicago gangs in a PowerPoint presentation.

She also wrote: “He has developed a great relationship with several Chicago gang officers and they gave him a tour of some of Chicago’s gang hot spots on his last trip. Prior to his next class he will obtain additional information from his Chicago gang contacts to make sure that information is covered for all future presentations.”

The emails also show Brown was directly involved with managing PLET’s training program. On Sept. 2, 2021, Boston emailed Cato that “Supt. Brown and I structured the 12-month agreement to teach 3 courses per month to CPD.”

On Nov. 2, 2021, Boston emailed Brown, saying PLET’s course on cops working with informants had been “well received.” Boston thanked Brown “for our continued partnership” saying, “We look forward to providing additional training to CPD!”

Two hours later, Brown emailed Cato, asking, “Where are we with the November warrant training?”

Brown added, “I want this done asap.”

Police records show PLET submitted an $18,750 bill for training on Nov. 30, 2021.

PLET didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The police department remains under a federal consent decree mandating sweeping reforms that rely heavily on officer training.

Skahill’s predecessor Robert Boik was fired in August 2022 after clashing with Brown over the number of trainers at the police academy.

Most of the payments to PLET came after that public dispute roiled the department.

The number of officers assigned to the department’s Training and Support Group has risen since Waller rejected the PLET deal — to 333 sworn officers in October. That was the most since August 2017, according to the inspector general’s office. There are now 329 cops assigned to that unit.